Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat weblog has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is David Brophy, Birgit Clark, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof. You're welcome to read, post comments and participate in our community. You can email the Kats here

For the half-year to 30 June 2015, the IPKat's regular team is supplemented by contributions from guest bloggers Suleman Ali, Tom Ohta and Valentina Torelli.

Regular round-ups of the previous week's blogposts are kindly compiled by Alberto Bellan.

Wednesday, 24 May 2006

IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy has just returned from this year's Spring Meeting of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, held at Chesford Grange, Warwickshire. The day's programme was highly thought-provoking and extremely well presented, giving the 150+ participants a rich diet of ideas as well as some unpalatable facts about the extent of counterfeiting and our inability to co-ordinate our resources effectively.

It would be invidious to single out individual speakers, but particular mention should be made of the explanations of asset recovery by Chris Cole (Team Leader, Confiscation Investigations) and Sara Dayman (BDO Stoy Hayward). In short, however small a sentence may be given to someone who sells counterfeits, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 can ensure that all his ill-gotten gains, plus costs, can be squeezed out of his recovered assets (fancy houses, cars etc).

Another matter of great fascination was Jeremy's first encounter with barristers who dealt with criminal, rather than the usual civil, intellectual property issues. Lynn Griffin (right) and her colleagues from IP-prosecuting set 23 Essex Street were very much in evidence, Lynn giving out the clear message that you've got to get your evidence sorted out before you can expect to conclude a successful prosecution.

For most of us, however, the big excitement was provided by the 1.30am fire alarm, which left a large number of soggy pyjama'd personages standing in the drizzle for an hour, trying to summon up the Dunkirk spirit and wishing we'd had the presence of mind to pick up our car keys before fleeing the putatively burning building. Fortunately the problem was of the no-fire-without-smoke so the two handsomely shiny fire engines were called out in vain. Unfortunately, the hotel staff had some problem turning off the fire alarm. A problem with counterfeit parts, perhaps?

First for dot.eu

The IPKat's friend, charming and scholarly IP/IT lawyer Enrique Batalla (below, right), was the first man on earth to be a panellist issuing a decision in a .eu dispute. Enrique adds:

"The Czech Arbitration Court assembled a preparatory team of legal professionals and expert lawyers in charge of producing the .eu Dispute Resolution Rules and Supplemental Rules that currently govern the .eu ADR process, and my firm, Batalla Abogados, was one of the five ones appointed as preparatory team, having directly and closely intervened in the production of the aforementioned Rules and Supplemental Rules".

Enrique's decision is here. In short, here is the English summary of the decision:"

"1. Taking into consideration the provisions of articles 10.1 and 10.2 of the Commission Regulation (EC) No. 874/2004 of 28th April 2004; article 12.3 of the same Regulation; article 14 of the same Regulation, according to the documentation filed with the Case File it is inferred that PST Business Solutions VV is owner of the trademark registered b the Benelux Trademarks Office .PST. n. 0779280, with publication date 01-01-2006; 2. Bearing in mind that although the Complainant has filed an opposition against the aforementioned trademark, according to the documentation filed by EURid such an opposition has finalized, without any statement that the trademark has been rejected; 3. Bearing in mind that PST Business Solutions has applied for the domain name on December 7, 2005 at 11:01:21.274 h. and Peripheral Systems Technology B.V. has applied for it on December 7, 2005 at 1:07:59.072 hr.; 4. Bearing in mind that the Registry shall register the domain name on the first come, first served basis, as per article 14 of the Commission Regulation (EC) No. 874/2004; 5. Bearing in mind that it is not realized that the Decision made by the Registry conflicts with the European Union Regulations (ADR Rules B (1) 11. d. (1) 2.), I decide to reject the claim and confirm the decision made by the Registry".

You can read all the available .eu decisions here.Managing Intellectual Property report here